Faith is the essence of the unseen. I could not survive without believing in God, my Higher Power. Although I was raised in a Presbyterian Church, my own faith is a personal matter. It has more to do with a gut-level feeling than theology or religious dogma. My parents became alcoholics through no choice of their own. My mother used to drive under the influence with me in the car. At eleven years of age, I was calmly telling her when she was going off the road.
My folks died a year apart when I was in high school. Both of my sisters became alcoholics. I studied self-help books; I studied psychology. I tried to understand what had happened to my family. I tried to find what to do to keep it from happening to me. According to the statistics, I should be alcoholic. Grace of God, I’m not.
I begin having depression and I went to a counselor. I found out that I have recurrent depression. When I looked it up, I found that many people who suffer from it try to self medicate with drugs or alcohol and become addicted. It was like a light bulb coming on in my head. My great-aunt always said, “In our family, you’re either in the bar or the Amen corner, there’s no in-between.”
So, my family has a real spiritual need. We have had many ministers and elders in the family. We’ve also had a lot of alcoholics. We also tend to be intelligent and arrogant. This is not a good combination when you need help. You are too smart for your own good. You think you can fix yourself and that no one is as smart as you are.
My depression turned out to be a good thing. I accepted that intelligent, or not, I couldn’t fix myself. In pursuing counseling and eventually taking anti-depressants, I had to accept my own limitations. Accepting my own limitations and accepting my definitely flawed self saved me from the family arrogance. Guess what? I was human after all and no better than the next person.
